


Stolen Candy Canes and Gifted Hearts

by emberloey



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor, M/M, Will Give You Cavities, alternate universe - surgeon, christmas drable, fluff extreme fluff, kind of medical romance?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emberloey/pseuds/emberloey
Summary: Chanyeol's a thief. He steals candy canes out of his department's breakroom. Baekhyun's heart, thought, that was readily gifted with a bow.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 22
Kudos: 220





	Stolen Candy Canes and Gifted Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> MERRY CHRISTMAS LOSERS HAHA
> 
> real talk i love y'all so much you mean so much to me thank you for all your support and sticking with me through another year of exo and comebacks and craziness and fanfictions. have an amazing holiday season and if i don't post anything else have a happy new year.
> 
> this year, especially the last third or so of it, has been important to me and my development as a person more than i can say and a lot of that is thanks to you all, my friends who i've had the pleasure to meet through exo. thanks for existing everyone uwu.

Baekhyun yawns as he passes the desk, knocking it lightly as he hands the manila folder off to the charge nurse. She gives him a sympathetic smile and a nod as she accepts the file and begins flipping through it.

“Not amusing enough?”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes as he runs a hand over his face. “Please. Kid needed two butterflies and an antiseptic wipe. If he wasn’t screaming I would’ve fallen asleep.”

Joohyun snorts softly and shakes her head, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. “That’s going to run up. Their insurance doesn’t qualify.”

“Not our problem.” Baekhyun puts on a smile and waves as one of the interns leads the frazzled, over-protective mother and her not-even-slightly injured son back towards the waiting room. As soon as they’re gone he slumps against the desk.

Joohyun glances up at him briefly as she re-situates the file so she’ll be able to transfer the information into the computer. During busy days she’d just set it aside, or hand it off to the interns to take care of, but this is Christmas Eve. The room has crickets. It won’t get crazy until tomorrow morning, when she and Baekhyun and the others are off and won’t have to deal with new “toy” mishaps (she wouldn’t consider a dirt bike a  _ toy _ , but some parents do). She decides to transfer it in herself tonight just for something to do.

“Fair enough.” Her eyes wander to the clock on the wall beyond Baekhyun’s head. “Why don’t you go grab a break?”

“It’s still early.” Baekhyun shakes his head and stands up, blinking a few times. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us. I’ll wait it out.”

Joohyun hums.

Baekhyun looks around the empty emergency room. A couple of kids, an elderly couple, and some half-drunk college kids are the only ones present. Christmas music plays softly through the speakers, and Baekhyun saw a Christmas movie playing on the screen in the waiting room earlier when he’d called little Mark and his mom back.

Christmas used to be his favorite holiday. It still is, really, he’s just...older now. It’s not as important. He used to make a big deal about things, unable to understand why his older brother wouldn’t come home for as long during the holidays. Once he graduated college himself, though, he understood. He traveled for medical school, and at that point going back home for three or four days just wasn’t practical. He went even further from home looking for a job he’d be happy with, and the drive back home would take him ten hours without a break.

Not worth it.

He’d called his parents before his shift started, and he’ll call them again in the morning. For now, he’ll take advantage of the older, married doctors giving up hours to spend time home with their families and pick up the holiday shifts —Thanksgiving, Christmas, he’ll take as many as he can get.

“Here’s another for you.” Yixing, another doctor who picked up the graveyard shift and Baekhyun’s supervisor, sets a manila folder in front of him. “Think you can handle it?”

Baekhyun opens the folder and sighs—a 53-year-old woman and her worried husband, here because they think one of her stitches pulled after a surgery a week ago.

“As long as one of them starts screaming at me to keep me awake.” Baekhyun nods at the two and flips through the file as he walks to their assigned room.

All in all, the appointment takes 45 minutes. 10 to check the stitches and tighten the one that looked to be pulling, and 35 to reassure them that she was fine, healing normally, and to review the post-surgery do’s and don'ts. 

Joohyun smiles sympathetically at him as he drops the folder on her desk and buries his face in his hands with a groan.

“I’m going to die, Joo.”

“Mhm.” She flips the folder open.

“I’m so bored.”

“I know.”

“Can’t we have, like, an accident or something?” Joohyun shoots Baekhyun a disappointed look and he deflates against the desk. “Nevermind.”

Joohyun looks at the clock. “Go take your break. There’s some coffee in the breakroom.”

Baekhyun glances at his watch and nods. It’s 11:32. Christmas starts in 28 minutes. “See you in 15.”

“Take your time,” Joohyun calls after him as Baekhyun runs his hands through his hair to wake himself up.

Coffee. She’s right. The whole room smells like coffee and Baekhyun smiles upon walking in.

The volunteers had decorated the place one night, with a mini Christmas tree in the far corner, a festive tablecloth on the round table, and red and green sparkly tinsel along the counter on the back wall. A couple of festive cartoons were taped up on the walls, and those little candy looking paper fans were hanging from the ceiling. It’s cute.

There are candy and a few candy canes in a variety of Christmas-themed dishes beside the coffee pot, and Baekhyun stirs one of the candy canes into his coffee after he alters it with creamer and sugar the way he likes it.

It’s warm, and he sits down in one of the chairs with a sigh and his hands wrapped around the mug. A Christmas movie is playing on the TV mounted in the corner and he watches it as he sips his coffee.

Baekhyun’s so lost in the movie that he doesn’t hear anyone behind him until his name is called.

“Hm?” He turns in his chair and smiles. “Chanyeol, hey.”

“Hey. May I?” Baekhyun nods and Chanyeol sinks into the chair beside him, candy cane hooked over the rim of his own mug and melting into the coffee. “We had the same idea, I see.”

“We did.” Baekhyun nods. “You’re an intellectual.”

He laughs as Chanyeol bows as far as he can, given the table. “Thank you, thank you. I know. Hold your applause, please.” He sits back up and smiles at Baekhyun. “No, you,” he points and Baekhyun feels his breath catch as Chanyeol shoots him a famous million-watt smile,  _ “you’re _ the best.”

“Mhm.” Baekhyun takes another sip of his coffee and raises his eyebrows. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

Dr. Park Chanyeol. Emergency surgeon. Also far from home. He, like Baekhyun, works holidays and nights more often than not. They’re both pretty committed to their jobs, meaning they see each other a lot. Their schedules coincide more often than not.

They also happen to live on the same street. And frequent the same coffee shops. And get drinks after work, or spend the night at each other’s places after particularly hard shifts when they don’t want to go home and be alone.

“Nothing’s going on in my department. They won’t miss me. If they do, they can page me.” Chanyeol shrugs and sets his mug back on the table, patting the pager in his white coat pocket. “Besides, someone mentioned you were working tonight. I wanted to come say hi.”

Baekhyun may be harboring a crush. But it’s  _ small _ , okay? Very small. Fucking minuscule. Don’t talk about it.

“You wanted to steal our coffee.”

“You guys have  _ candy canes.” _ Chanyeol picks the half-melted stick out of his mug and licks it, biting off a bit of the end where it’s really thin and crunching on it. “I mean, what’s more Christmas than fucking candy canes, you know?”

“Thief.” Baekhyun shakes his head disapprovingly and Chanyeol makes a show of getting up and slipping one more candy cane in his scrub shirt pocket after looking around for witnesses. He sits back down and the two fall into a comfortable silence, drinking their coffee and watching the movie.

Baekhyun didn’t miss how Chanyeol slid just a touch closer to him when he sat back down, but he wasn’t sure what to make of it, so he tried to push it to the back of his mind—and by that, of course, he didn’t stop thinking about it. At all.

The clock on the wall chimes. 11:45.

“I need to head back in three minutes,” Baekhyun says softly, sighing. Chanyeol crinkles his nose. 

“I’ve got six.”

“Any plans for tomorrow?” Baekhyun asks after a beat of silence. Chanyeol shrugs after downing the rest of his coffee.

“Nothing special. A couple of phone calls to my sister and my parents. If it’s not too cold I’ll take Toben for a walk, but I probably won’t be up until afternoon, anyway.” Chanyeol shifts so his whole body is facing Baekhyun, legs hanging off the side of his chair and his knees brush the outside of Baekhyun’s right thigh. “You?”

Baekhyun swallows. “About the same. Without Toben, though. I don’t have a dog yet.”

Chanyeol hums. “How’s that going, by the way?”

“I’m working on it.” Baekhyun, tired of being alone, began searching for a dog a couple of months ago. He’s been narrowing down breeds a little at a time, asking Chanyeol’s help or opinion since he’s already been through the whole process, adopting the  _ cutest _ black poodle right out of school. “Corgis are cute.”

Chanyeol smiles. “That they are.” His voice lowers. “So are you.”

Baekhyun blinks once. Twice. “What?”

“You’re cute.” Chanyeol leans forward slightly and his smile softens, eyes fond. “I’ve always thought so. I figured you knew, I wasn’t exactly trying to hide it.”

“Well...uh, no, but—” Baekhyun swallows, clearing his throat. “I just thought you were being friendly.”

“‘Friendly?’” Chanyeol chuckles. “Nope. I don’t tell Sooyoung that she’s cute. Or Yixing. Or Joohyun, or Kyungs—”

“I get it, I get it.” Baekhyun shushes him.

“I haven’t slept with any of them, either.” 

Baekhyun bites his lip. He and Chanyeol hadn’t  _ slept together _ slept together, but there have been occasions on movie nights where it got late and they fell asleep, waking up tangled together under the blankets with their arms around each other.

There was once where they passed out together in Baekhyun’s bed. It had been a late night, both having had to work overtime after a catastrophic fire in the middle of a rainstorm. It had been an apartment complex and they’d been just about to get off when they got the calls—every on-call employee was called in, and they both ended up working full 30 hours shifts until they legally  _ had _ to leave. Baekhyun’s had been closer to the hospital by a few blocks and they hadn’t even thought about it before crashing on either side of his queen.

Baekhyun woke up with Chanyeol hugging him from behind, breaths warm and even on his neck, and Chanyeol woke up with Baekhyun tracing the exposed tattoos on his arm.

They didn’t talk about it.

“Okay. I mean, good.” Baekhyun can’t meet his eyes. “Not that it matters, or anything. I don’t care. You’re your own person. You can be friendly to whoever you want.”

“Mhm.” Chanyeol sets his mug aside. “Baekhyun.”

“Fuck, the time. I should’ve been back on the floor five minutes ago.”

“Baekhyun.”

“Have a good shift, Chanyeol. I’ll see you—”

“Wait.” Chanyeol stands and grabs Baekhyun’s arm, holding firm so that they’re both facing each other a few steps from the table. “Just...wait a second, okay?”

“What, Chanyeol? We have work.” Baekhyun bites his lower lip. “Let’s just get going. I don’t want to get in trouble. I need this job.”

“Listen to me. Real quick. I need to...I have to say this. I really do.” Chanyeol takes a deep breath. “You’re important to me. Incredibly so. And I really like you.”

Baekhyun blinks again, letting out a slow breath. “You do?”

“Like I said, I wasn’t really trying to hide my feelings. I was hoping you’d feel the same way but you haven’t really, uh, responded the way I expected you to, so I’m just making things very clear. I like you. And if you don’t like me that’s fine, just...please tell me.” Chanyeol pauses and takes his first real breath. “I’d appreciate you telling me so I can move on and not ruin you being my friend. Hopefully.”

“No, I…” Baekhyun clears his throat. “I like you. I do, yeah. But I just...we work together, Chanyeol. Daily. Aren’t there rules against dating someone in the workplace?”

Chanyeol shakes his head. “You have to be careful dating within your department, but you’re in emergency and I’m in surgery. That’s a pretty distinct difference.”

“So it would be okay?”

Chanyeol nods, and Baekhyun sighs in relief.

“Good. Because I really fucking like you.” Baekhyun smiles. Chanyeol wraps his arms around his waist and Baekhyun relaxes completely. “I have for a while now. But you’re important to me as a friend and I didn’t want to ruin anything.”

Chanyeol’s arm tightens, and one hand comes up to cup his cheek. “Would it ruin things if I kissed you right now?”

“I think you might have to.” Baekhyun points and Chanyeol looks up, laughing softly.

There’s a single, old, plastic, sorry excuse for mistletoe stapled to the ceiling.

“Does that even count?”

“It does.” Baekhyun reaches up and wraps a hand around the back of Chanyeol’s neck, pulling him down into a kiss.

Chanyeol kisses him back softly, long pecks at first before they find each other and their mouths begin moving together. The clock on the wall chimes at midnight.

What a way to welcome Christmas. Baekhyun smiles, and when Chanyeol asks about it he simply shakes his head and kisses him again.

Yixing and Joohyun smile, heads peeking in from either side of the doorframe.

“It’s about damn time.” Yixing mutters. Joohyun nods.

“You’re telling me. I was tired of the pining and whining.”

“Hey, have you seen Dr. Byun?” Jongin, one of the younger interns walks up. “I need him to sign off on something. Is he in there? Dr. Byun!”

_ “Shh.” _ Yixing and Joohyun jump the poor kid, pushing him back. Yixing covers his mouth and starts pulling him away with a quiet “what is it? I can probably take care of it for you.”

When Joohyun looks back Baekhyun and Chanyeol are still standing there but they’re facing the doorway, eyes wide and ears red from being caught being so unprofessional in the workplace.

“Joo, I…”

Joohyun waves her hand, shutting Baekhyun up. “I’ll page you if we need you.” Then she grabs the door and pulls it shut behind her.

The two laugh nervously, ruffling their hair and eyeing each other.

“I mean, since they closed the door and everything.” Chanyeol tilts Baekhyun’s chin up and kisses him again, gently still, arm wrapping around his waist to hold him tight.

Baekhyun’s hands go from the lapels of Chanyeol’s coat up to wrap around his neck, and he pushes up on his toes. Chanyeol smiles as they continue kissing, not deepening too much but still hard enough to take their breath away. 

“Can we maybe—” Chanyeol groans, pager buzzing loudly from his pocket. He answers it and shoots Baekhyun a sympathetic smile. “They need me back.”

Baekhyun glances at the clock on the wall. “We’re way over our allotted breaks.”

Chanyeol shrugs and steals one more kiss, pulling Baekhyun back to him by the sleeve of his white coat when he starts to step away. “Totally worth it.”

“Completely.” Baekhyun kisses him once more and then they slip out of the breakroom.

“What time do you get off?” Chanyeol asks, snagging Baekhyun’s hand and swinging it as they walk.

“Seven. Why?”

“Meet me at the entrance to the employee parking lot.” Chanyeol pauses in the empty hallway just before the main part of the emergency room and kisses Baekhyun again. “Come home with me. Spend Christmas with me.”

Baekhyun smiles and nods. “I’d love to.”

“Merry Christmas, Baek.” Chanyeol murmurs, squeezing his hand before letting go.

“Merry Christmas, ‘Yeol. I’ll see you at seven.”

Baekhyun pointedly ignores Yixing and Joohyun’s looks as he approaches the desk. “Anything you need from me?”

Yixing pulls out a chair for him. “Detail. Come sit.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes but sits down anyway. It’s going to be a long seven hours.

===

Chanyeol jogs up at 7:18 am, just three minutes after Baekhyun got there, equally bundled up in a puffy jacket, ear warmers, gloves, and a backpack. They both had the same idea to change from their scrub pants into thick sweatpants to try and keep the cold at bay.

“Sorry, paperwork mixup. Ready to get out of here?”

Baekhyun nods, arms crossed tightly over his chest and shivering. “Let’s go. It’s cold.”

Chanyeol takes his hand and tucks it into his pocket, squeezing it as he starts to walk in the direction of the subway station. They live in a big city, and with both of them in small-ish apartments, they don’t have cars. The subway is a good way to get around, except when it’s exceptionally cold or exceptionally rainy, or any dreaded combination of the two.

“You’d better be good to my doctor!” Yixing calls as he passes the pair on his way to his own car, eyeing Chanyeol up and down jokingly.

“I will be!” Chanyeol calls back good-naturedly. He turns to look down at Baekhyun, squeezing his hand again. “Because it’s what he deserves.”

It starts snowing as Baekhyun tugs Chanyeol to a stop and kisses him again.

**Author's Note:**

> merry christmas. love y'all uwu. i'll see you again when i see you <33
> 
> \- em
> 
> twitter/cc: emberloey


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